Someone Serious
by Galatyn Renner
Summary: Jacqueline discovers that more is required of a Musketeer than to fence and look good in uniform, and enlists Siroc’s help. (PAX's Young Blades)
1. Fair Behavior

Someone Serious

By Siroc

Disclaimer: I do not own the television show Young Blades, nor the characters portrayed therein. I do own this story and upcoming OC's. Chapter titles are from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: Act One, Scene Two.

"Even if I did want someone- which I don't- it certainly wouldn't be someone flippant like you. It would be someone serious." Jacqueline, Rubadub Sub

Chapter One: Fair Behavior

The last rainstorms of spring had turned the country tracks outside of Paris to mud, which daubed the pair of Musketeers assigned to patrol that day, though one was significantly dirtier than the other by the time the two had stabled their horses and returned to headquarters. Mud covered d'Artagnan from boot heels to waist and continued indiscriminately upward to smear his gray jacket and clump in his queue. Jacqueline, who had ridden out with him, divested herself of dirt simply by scraping her boot heels on the mat before stepping inside.

"Hola!" Seated at the table, Ramon looked up from his plate of fish as the two entered. "What happened to you, amigo?" he asked upon sighting the Abominable Mudman.

D'Artagnan muttered something that might possibly have involved the word 'nothing', and then, at Ramon's puzzled expression, said, "I fell of my horse."

"You did not!" Jacqueline turned around from hanging up her pristine jacket. "I pushed you off your horse."

A smudge of dirt on his nose detracted somewhat from d'Artagnan's affronted glare. "What cause would you have to unhorse a brother Musketeer?" Back to Ramon, he gave her a look that dared her to give a reason.

She cocked an eyebrow at him and shrugged. "You called me Jacqueline," said Jacqueline triumphantly.

Ramon burst out laughing, revealing dimples and a mouthful of white teeth. "Ha! I would do more than push you in the mud if you dared to call me Ramona." He clapped Jacqueline on the shoulder. She winced.

Mouth open, d'Artagnan stopped, closed it, and cleared his throat. "Well. If you'll excuse me, 'Jacques', Ramon, I have to go and get ready for Giselle. My date. With Giselle. In half an hour." And he stalked off, dislodging tiny mud clumps which showered the floor and could be heard sprinkling in his wake after he'd slammed the door.

Jacqueline glared after him until Ramon caught her eye and she had to laugh too. Grinning, she gestured at his empty plate. "Is there any more of that?"

"Sadly, no. It was a noble dish." He struck a pose, fork upraised.

"That's all right," Jacqueline said hastily before he could begin rhapsodizing. "I'll have a sandwich, or something, and go to bed." She yawned.

"Oh, no, you won't," Siroc said from the doorway. As the other two turned, he stepped forward and plunked a stack of leather-bound books onto the table. "Captain Duval dropped these by before he went home."

Jacqueline stared nonplussed at the volumes as Ramon, chuckling, took his plate to the scullery. She looked to Siroc for an explanation. He shrugged. "A Musketeer must be well-educated, classically educated. It's in the Code. No one makes a big deal of it, but you have to pass the Examen d'Ecole Classique your first year."

A look of abject horror passed over Jacqueline's face before she coughed and tried to pretend that she had of course heard of the test and could no doubt pass it with ease. And then pragmatism kicked in. She cleared her throat. "Don't you think this is a little excessive in my case? I am a gentleman, after all. I've had a classical education."

Siroc shrugged. "It's not that hard. Even d'Artagnan passed it the first time, and the only thing he ever reads is poetry to his latest conquest. But you can speak to Captain Duval about it if you like."

The horror in Jacqueline's eyes grew as he turned away. "Um, Siroc?" He turned back, one brow raised. "I don't think I can. What I told him before he let me join wasn't exactly, ah, true." The other eyebrow went up. "I'm not a gentleman, and I haven't had a classical education. I can't even-" her voice faltered, dipping lower instead of higher- from long practice. "I can't even read."

There. It was out, and now his eyes, the color of watered coffee, wouldn't let her look away. His mouth tightened, his brow furrowed. "What?"

"I never learned," she explained defensively. "There wasn't time, and we didn't have the money for school. They don't teach farmer's d- I mean, farmers these things." She gestured at the books.

"Well, we all have our secrets." He looked down for a moment. "I could teach you, if you like." His eyes made the statement a question, though he tried to keep his tone diffident.

Jacqueline waved him away. "No, no. You have to invent things for the King."

"You could help me," he offered. "I need an assistant. D'Artagnan thinks it's boring, and Ramon gets food everywhere."

"And you'd teach me to read? Those?" Jacqueline stared skeptically at the books.

"Sure." He thought about adding 'It isn't that hard,' and didn't. "Come on. We can start tonight. The test's in two months." Turning, he led the way down the hall.

A little reluctantly, Jacqueline hefted the books and followed, but stopped short as Siroc paused in the door to his laboratory, fumbling for something on the other side of the wall. After a moment, he found it, and she heard a switch flip.

Jacqueline gasped as light flooded the room, sparkling off ranks of chemical equipment, more glass than she had ever seen before. The unnatural radiance also illuminated a shelf of books with titles embossed in gold and several long blackboards chalked with what appeared to be cabbalistic figures. The only familiar thing in the room was a tiny forge, sitting dark in one corner. Jacqueline stared upwards. A bank of windows set midway up the wall must light the room by day, but the currently artificial incandescence drew her attention now, sparkling from lamps and globes on walls and ceiling.

"I'd forgotten you hadn't seen it before." Siroc looked around, grinning with not a little pride.

"It's amazing," Jacqueline breathed. "What do you light it with, oil?"

"No, it's gas. Natural gas," he explained, shucking off jacket and tunic, and rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Jacqueline wrinkled her nose. "You mean-"

He caught her expression. "No. It occurs naturally in the ground, and burns when compressed. Or not, as the case may be." Siroc grimaced. "It's highly flammable."

Jacqueline looked around again, still awestruck. "I can see."

"You can put the books down anywhere you can find space. We won't need them for awhile." As Jacqueline laid the stack on a workbench not filled with models and papers, Siroc, busy tying on a long leather apron, gestured to one of the blackboards. "Use that one. Wipe it off."

Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and paused, hovering over the chalk marks. "What's on it? It looks important."

"It's an equation to calculate the circumference of the earth, based on Eratosthenes' approach." Siroc shrugged. "Although, he assumed a perfect sphere, and was two hundred feet too short. The globe bulges in the middle, you know." Jacqueline's expression made it clear that she didn't. "Well, I'm confident that my numbers are correct. You can erase it."

Still doubtful, she obeyed, stepped back, and, eyes still on Siroc, nearly tripped on a tangle of hoses on the floor. "Gah!"

Suppressing a grin, he crossed to stand beside her, chalk in hand. "Coil those up, would you?" While Jacqueline bent and tried with difficulty to find an end in the mess at which to begin, he took a deep breath and began to write, trying to explain as he did so. "There are twenty-six letters, which are used to make words. Each letter has a different sound." He finished the alphabet and stood back.

Jacqueline, hose in hand, looked at the board in dismay. "Twenty-six! Can't you just teach me the most important ones?"

"You'll have to use them all, eventually, but some are more important than others." He went back and underlined five letters. "These are the vowels. Each word has to have at least one of them. They have more different sounds than the other letters. With me so far?"

The coil of hose under Jacqueline's arm had grown with the despair in her eyes, but she managed a small nod. "Once you know the names," he said encouragingly, "it's easier to remember the sounds." Pointing, Siroc recited the alphabet. "Now you do it."

With much prompting, Jacqueline struggled through half the letters, giving up completely after confusing M and N. She shook her head, glaring at the board. "Look, Siroc, don't, um, tell the others about this, all right?" She waved her hand at the letters.

He nodded, eyes softening. "Your secret is safe with me. Now, try it again."

Groaning, Jacqueline did, and then held up the neat coil. "Where do you want this?"

"Um-" Siroc ran a hand through his hair and looked around. "Somewhere out of the way. In the corner." He pointed, and grabbed paper and quill as Jacqueline crossed to deposit the hose.

When she returned and peered over his shoulder, she found, in a careful, spiky script, another, larger set of characters written on the paper. "You've got fifty-two there," she pointed out, trying to contain her dismay.

Siroc finished with a flourish and looked up. "Well, you won't have any trouble with the mathematics section of the test, at any rate." He pointed with the quill. "Each letter can be written two ways, in upper- and lowercase. Uppercase is the larger ones. They're used for beginning names and sentences, and the smaller ones for everything else. All right?"

He waited for her to nod. "Here, take this," handing her the parchment, "and learn them. You might practice writing them, as well, for tomorrow."

Trying to suppress a yawn, Jacqueline folded the paper carefully and tucked it into her pocket. She looked around. The laboratory was still singularly untidy, but she could remedy that later. "Thanks, Siroc, I-" She knew him too well for a handshake, and not well enough for an embrace. "Thank you," she said again, trying to put all of her gratitude into the words and still retain some vestige of masculinity.

With an odd mixture of shrug and nod, he smiled, the expression transforming his already finely drawn, sensitive face into a thing of angelic beauty. "Glad to help a friend." Jacqueline caught her breath and felt her heart, a knot since her mother's death, begin to unravel a little.

Author's Note: Constructive feedback, please. Are people interested in reading this? Have I gotten the four in character?


	2. The Form of My Intent

Chapter Two: The Form of My Intent

Muttering the alphabet to herself, Jacqueline stared into the swirling coffee, her third cup of the morning. Forced to begin the day at the same unholy hour as the rest of the Musketeers even though she had no assigned duties that day, Jacqueline had dressed by feel and staggered across the rain-soaked street to Café Nouveau. One of a handful of patrons, and the only Musketeer, she had sat at the bar.

Ramon and Siroc had patrol that day. She had not seen d'Artagnan since the night before and assumed he had never returned from his date. Jacqueline grinned, hoping she could manage to be present when Captain Duval caught his prodigy sneaking back into headquarters. In her two weeks with the Musketeers, she'd learned that the Captain tended to conduct his dressings down in public and at a high volume.

After taking another gulp of coffee, Jacqueline reached up to rub her right shoulder, wrenched during fencing practice the other day. The last-ditch lunge had gotten through her adversary's guard, though, and earned her the applause of the assembled trainees. She grinned again at the memory, and looked up into a blast of warm, moist air, redolent with yeast and butter.

The door behind the counter, presumably leading from the kitchen, had ejected a round-faced young man of medium height wearing a floppy toque and white apron. Seeing her at the bar, he grimaced and undid his apron strings. Yanking the floury garment over his head dislodged the hat, so both got tossed under the bar as he slammed back into the kitchen. Frowning, Jacqueline watched him go and return with a tray of squarish, golden pastries.

"Try one of these for me?" Taking one himself, he slid the tray across the bar.

Jacqueline picked a bun up and stared at it for a moment before carefully biting in. The tender, buttery layers of pastry separated easily and the filling, unfamiliar but delicious, tasted of heaven. "It's good," she mumbled, trying to keep the gooey brown stuff from dripping down her chin. "What is it?"

"I haven't decided yet. Either pattissé Etienne or pain au chocolat." He looked critically down at the tray. "I've just created them."

Jacqueline took another bite, gesturing with the bun. "Do you work here?" It was a terribly obvious question, but the fellow had plied her with free pastry, so Jacqueline felt the need to at least keep up her end of the conversation.

"Baker and sous-chef: I do everything except give the orders." He shrugged, picking at the pastry.

"And you're a Musketeer." The non-question cut through the conversation, formerly as light as the pastry they discussed, turning it serious. "I've seen you in here before with the others."

Mouth full of pastry, Jacqueline shrugged. "So?" She took another bite, not sure where he was going. His expression, half fearful and half hoping, puzzled her.

"Noret!" A voice bellowed through the open kitchen door, and the boy's fierce, intense eyes blazed for a moment. "I've got to go," he said, sounding slightly strangled. "I'm glad there's another one." And, retrieving his apron and tugging his hat back over his shock of blond hair, he ducked back into the kitchen.

Jacqueline stared after him, the mouthful of pastry sticking in her throat. What had he meant, 'another one'? She had half a mind to barge into the kitchen and make him explain, but a loud, one-sided argument had begun on the other side of the door, which was still ajar, the shouting directed, Jacqueline thought, at 'Noret' rather than coming from him. She stayed frozen where she was, thinking furiously.

Could he possibly have seen through her disguise? Jacqueline could not imagine adding this boy, who had been quite nice, to the list below Mimou, whose perception and kindness still made her smile, and d'Artagnan, who had only guessed with the evidence before him and Gerard to explain. Unable to completely ignore this possibility, she at least put d'Artagnan out of her head, but even forcibly evicting him made her wonder whether he'd said or done something at the café, with or without her present, that had broadcast his knowledge of her gender to Noret, who might have been watching.

Spitting her sticky mouthful into a napkin, Jacqueline told herself to calm down. She interacted with men every day, and none of them had realized who—'_what'_—she was. This one, a comparative stranger, couldn't possibly have. 'Not possibly,' she told herself, willing her pounding heart slower. 'He must have meant another "Musketeer". D'Artagnan probably picks on him.'

Booting d'Artagnan a second time, she gathered up her sword and baldric and shouldered her way out of the rapidly filling café. Outside, it had begun to rain again. Pressed back under the eaves, Jacqueline turned her collar up, tucked her sword under her jacket, and prepared to wait it out.

Five minutes later, the downpour had only grown heavier, and a leaky gutter had dropped a stream of icy water down the back of her neck. Deciding she couldn't get any wetter, Jacqueline made a dash across the street, dodging a carriage and a ragged animal of indeterminate specie, to blessed refuge in Musketeer headquarters.

Despite the terrible weather, the building was relatively empty, so Jacqueline managed to avoid encounters and questions as she headed toward her room. On the way, though, she passed the door that lead to Siroc's laboratory and paused.

The place 'did' need a good cleaning, and doing so would be more useful than sulking in her room or doing drills in the gymnasium, her usual cure for boredom. Without Siroc there, she'd be able to get a lot done, and give him a nice surprise when he returned from patrol. After checking the corridor, she opened the door and paused again, hand hovering over the gas switch, vision of fireballs dancing through her head. She decided to make do with the overcast sunlight streaming through the windows and light some candles.

They did little more than define the shadows cast by towering piles of books and shifting paper landslides. Elaborately haphazard constructions of glassware barely glinted, but here and there metal gleamed off models and instruments. A fine layer of chalk dust covered everything, especially thick beneath the blackboards, while soot filled the forge, heavy with old coal. Jacqueline took a deep breath and rolled up her sleeves.

It was just like home, where she'd cleaned when she didn't want to think or was tired of crying, when Gerard wouldn't duel with her or another boy had made his intentions known to her father. She began on a bookshelf near the door, removing beakers, tubes, and the odd teacup, knocking dust onto the floor and standing books upright. The space got filled with books from workbench piles, and Jacqueline shifted the equipment to the now-empty benches, piling the crockery by the door.

She moved around the room this way until the proper things stood in what she hoped were their proper places, and then set to work on the snowdrifts of paper, arranging the stacks, as they might have been originally, into piles that looked more or less related. This was more miss than hit, as Jacqueline couldn't read the contents, and, she thought, probably wouldn't have understood them if she had been able to.

Even though she'd left the chalkboards alone and hadn't touched the loft, Jacqueline was nearly wading through the dust by the time she'd worked her way over to the forge. It, at least, she could deal with competently. New coal replaced the spent, as well as most of the soot, and though she itched to light it into life, she resisted.

After searching for and finding an Erlenmeyer flask full of what was probably water, she sprinkled it around to settle the dust and set about driving it into a pile with a broom she'd unearthed behind the forge. Retrieving what might once have been a wastebasket, she set about shoveling the debris inside. Back to the door, she heard it open, and craned her neck to see d'Artagnan stick his head inside.

"Well, I like what you've done with the place," he said, checking the corridor behind him. "Mind if I come in?"

"Yes." Jacqueline continued sweeping.

"Jacques, please!" he hissed, desperation contorting face and voice. "Captain Duval is after my blood!" And indeed, the sound of a limp and the tap of a cane echoed down the hall.

Jacqueline grinned and picked up the overflowing bin. "Serves you right." Opening the door, she shoved it into his arms. "Take care of that for me, would you?" And, with an angelic smile, she closed the door in his face, holding the knob and pushing against his frantic rattling. The thumping drew nearer, and then stopped.

She heard d'Artagnan clear his throat. "Hello, sir. You're looking well."

"I can't say the same for you, d'Artagnan. Perhaps that's why you couldn't be bothered to appear at muster this morning: you were sick?"

Again the throat clearing and a thud as d'Artagnan set the bin down. "I feel fine, sir."

"Good, because I hear the dungeons need another thorough cleaning. I think you're well enough to start on that bright and early tomorrow morning."

Jacqueline laughed so hard she nearly missed d'Artagnan's mumbled, "Yes, sir."

When she could stand upright again, she looked around with satisfaction at the laboratory, as organized as she could get it without Siroc's input. It was certainly clean. Grinning, she pulled a stool over to last night's chalkboard and began to study the alphabet.

She was just thinking of taking a lunch break when the door opened again and Siroc came in. Three steps into the room his expression went from preoccupied to horrified. "Jacques? What—"

She levered herself up and gestured at the room, smiling encouragingly. "Place needed a good cleaning. Thought I'd help."

"You- you-" he closed his eyes in incredulity for a moment, and then looked around again, his expression growing more pained by the minute. "You put all the books back on the shelves! My experiments! And my papers!"

Jacqueline's smile evaporated as he moved around the room, touching things compulsively. "I didn't break anything or throw anything away."

Brows drawn, Siroc frowned at the carefully arranged models, lips pressed tightly together, and then at Jacqueline. She shrugged helplessly, sheepish without knowing why, and tried to hang onto the fact that she hadn't done anything wrong.

"I had a system going here, and now I won't be able to find anything!" He slammed a fist down on a workbench, making the glassware jump.

"Siroc, I-" She stopped, unsure whether to apologize or argue, not really wanting to do either.

"Jacques, when I said I needed an assistant, this wasn't what I meant," he explained, now more exasperated than angry.

Opening her mouth to explain that that wasn't why she'd done it, that she'd only meant to help and be nice and say thank you, Jacqueline stopped, wondering at the masculinity of such statements. She could only look at Siroc and hope, as she had the night before, that her eyes would convey the meaning.

It didn't work. He tossed a lock of hair out of his eyes and stared around once more, expression as blank as glass. "Go. Just go."

Jacqueline fled, on the verge of tears, and did not look back.


	3. Worth Thy Pains

Chapter Three: Worth Thy Pains

Stalking down the hallway of Musketeer headquarters, Jacqueline thought about going for a run so she wouldn't have to think, but the rain had begun again in earnest, so she retrieved her sword from her room and headed for the gymnasium. There she found d'Artagnan, half lounging, half sulking, watching a Musketeer whose name she did not know trounce one whose name was either Thomas or Thierry. Wiping her eyes surreptitiously, she shucked off her jacket, unsheathed her sword, and began to stretch, almost happy again.

The two others finished their bout and flopped down on the edge of the mats, knowing they were in for a show if these two chose to duel.

They did. Jacqueline stepped into the arena, giving d'Artagnan the uncut version of his usual smirk, which he returned half-heartedly. They circled each other for bare seconds before closing, locking hilts in a corps-á-corps almost immediately, and pushing away once more.

Jacqueline fought left-handed to save her shoulder, glad that Gerard, somewhat ambidextrous himself, had practiced both hands with her, since she hated to give d'Artagnan too much of an advantage in anything. Winning or losing did not really matter to her, but she was determined not to be beaten in a careless, stupid way at the very beginning. Not by d'Artagnan.

Jacqueline had noticed that he tended to pair off only with opponents he knew he could beat, and so the two had not dueled seriously in public since she'd first joined the Musketeers. She had grudging respect for d'Artagnan's laid-back, technically perfect swordsmanship, since his technique was diametrically opposed to her own, a combination of instinct and ten years' trial and error. She  
wondered idly if his father had taught him to fence, and what fighting d'Artagnan Sr. would be like—until a well-aimed riposte broke through her guard.

"Touché." D'Artagnan danced back. Jacqueline followed, grimacing, taking the offensive, and scored her own corresponding hit. Another would have followed if he hadn't beaten her blade aside.

She ducked away from his fancy double riposte, which kept her tiring arm from having to parry, spinning around and darting under his guard. "Touché."

"I'll let you have that one, since there aren't any cows around this time." Grinning, punctuating each word with a blow to her blade or an attempt at her person, d'Artagnan advanced.

Jacqueline, wary but taking her cue from her opponent's behavior, had hitherto been fighting solely with her sword and not employing any unorthodox techniques: fencing by the book, something most of the younger Musketeers did only when under Captain Duval's close supervision. She had, however, given some thought to the advantages she had, being female fighting males. There weren't many, just  
one large one. D'Artagnan could not have known how lucky he was when her boot connected only with his knee.

Something stretched entirely too tightly in Jacqueline had broken at his comment, as though she had been able to shrug off the patronizing and backhanded compliments until that moment, but no longer. D'Artagnan stumbled, and  
Jacqueline danced forward, blade flashing. She saw his eyes go wide and then seem to say 'If you want to play that way, all right.' And then it was just like the first day.

He somersaulted forward, arms wide to tackle her shins. She cracked him across the head with her rapier hilt. He rolled sideways and to his feet, barreling into another corps-á-corps and using his greater strength to force her back  
against the wall. Grunting, she brought her knee up, but he was ready and spun away into a guard.

Jacqueline pushed off the wall, glaring at d'Artagnan, who smirked and leaned on his sword like a walking stick. "All right there, Jacques?"

She ran at him and he dodged, but her charge had been a feint and she spun to face him once more. D'Artagnan tried to back her against the wall again, and she deliberately tangled their elaborate basket hilts together, aiming a punch at his nose. He caught her fist with his free hand and they grappled for a moment, blades pressed between their bodies, until a hand on each of their shoulders pulled them apart.

Jacqueline bit her lip so she wouldn't scream: the shoulder Ramon had grabbed had been her right. "Take it easy! Be glad I wasn't the Captain, or you'd both be cleaning the dungeons." He stared from one grinning, panting combatant to the other. "Do I have to make you two shake hands?"

D'Artagnan dropped his sword and held out his hand diffidently. Jacqueline, shrugging, did the same and took it. He rolled her knuckles in his grip, and she shoved the palm of her other hand into his nose. Ramon said something rude in Spanish and pried them apart once more.

Jacqueline caught her breath as he dragged d'Artagnan away. It had been a good scrap, the kind she and Gerard used to have once in a while, when pent-up tension and bad feeling needed a physical outlet. A good row, with swords or without, usually broken up by their exasperated father, and things would be all right between them for a month or so. She hoped it would work in a similar way with d'Artagnan, that he'd get the message and start treating her like one of the guys.

Their two spectators had become two dozen, and were only now leaving grudgingly. 'Ramon was right,' she thought. 'It's a wonder Captain Duval didn't hear us.' Pushing hair out of her eyes, she went to wash.

Jacqueline had, out of necessity and a wish to be clean, developed a bathing routine that involved neither d'Artagnan's hot springs nor the public baths adjacent to Musketeer headquarters. What it 'did' involve was heating water and hauling buckets, and ultimately a lot of lukewarm water and strange looks from the other trainees, but Jacqueline felt that the pros outweighed the cons: if she had acquired a reputation for eccentricity, it still had to compete with the fact that she'd out-fenced the son of the great d'Artagnan on her first day, and finessed her way into the corps shortly thereafter.

No servants or silk sheets, Captain Duval had said that day, and he hadn't exaggerated. Though damp and more or less clean, Jacqueline was exhausted by the time she'd finished emptying the buckets in the courtyard and mopping up the water she'd spilled inside. Finally, barefoot and in her shirtsleeves, ignoring the studying she should be doing and the pain in her shoulder, Jacqueline fell into bed and a restless sleep, though it was not yet three in the afternoon.

She dreamed in a confusing hodgepodge of silent images, keeping one ear open. Even so, it took a couple minutes for the knocking to register. "Jacques? Can I come in?"

With the thick door muffling the voice, Jacqueline couldn't tell who stood outside. Even so, she bounded up horizontal and landed vertical, trying to yank on her pants and scrape her hair out of her eyes at the same time. Tucking in her shirt, Jacqueline realized too late that she'd forgotten to do anything about her chest. She looked down and sighed, blousing out the linen to cover what little nature had given her. After dashing a handful of water on her face and wiping it on her sleeve, she pulled the door open.

Siroc stood there, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "Did I wake you?" he wanted to know, eyes traveling down her disheveled uniform and frowzy hair.

Jacqueline crossed her arms over her chest. "Yes. No. Not really." She pushed a stray lock behind her ear and stared at him. "Did you want something?" 'Like to yell at me some more.'

"No. Yes. Not really." He looked down, and his hair flopped into his eyes. He pushed it back, but continued to gaze at a point somewhere between his boots and her bare feet.

Jacqueline took a deep breath and made what she felt was a great concession to peace and good will. "I can help you mess up your lab again, if you want."

He laughed a little at that. "No." He had actually done quite a bit toward that end himself, but did not think it tactful to say so. "Thank you," he said, looking up, eyes warm and brown and saying more than his voice could, "for sweeping, and cleaning the forge, and-" a painful admission- "organizing things."

"I didn't break anything, or throw anything away," Jacqueline said, as she had before.

"No, you didn't," he admitted, raking his hair back again. It had grown, Jacqueline noticed, a bit shaggy, probably longer than was strictly regulation to not have tied back.

"I was just trying to help, Siroc, all right? Because you're helping me." And that was as much as the part of her brain slowly learning to be male would let her verbalize.

It was enough. He nodded. "If you want to work on the alphabet some more, we can. I've left a solution precipitating, so there's not much more I can do." 'Until I reassemble the distillation apparatus you dismantled.'

Jacqueline thought about saying many things. 'Siroc, I'm dead where I stand.' 'Siroc, I can't move my arm.' 'Siroc, you really don't have to make it up to me.' But what she 'did' say was, "All right. Just a minute," and sat heavily on the bed to struggle one-handed into stockings and boots.

Leaning on the doorjamb, Siroc looked around the room from under his eyelashes and tried to look like he wasn't. It was not, strictly speaking, empty. There was a locked chest at the foot of the bed and a chair and a desk and a washstand, and since the room was quite small this meant it was quite full. But it 'felt' empty and unmarked by its occupant's personality. Even his own room was an overflow of his laboratory. Perhaps the only addition here was a heavy blue comforter now in disarray on the bed; Jacques had changed very little of this place, and Siroc wondered about this.

Jacqueline didn't let him wonder long. The room was a mess, and it was personal space, and she wanted to get both of them out of it as soon as possible. First, however, she had to get herself up off of the bed.

The cot's mattress had been badly used in the past; now the springs had a tendency to bow in the middle. Jacqueline had gotten used to sleeping around it, but levering herself off it while every muscle in her body screamed at her to lie back down, her shoulder loudest of all, was another prospect.

Sparing her right arm, she tried to lever herself up with the left. As it had yet to recover from the duel, this attempt met with limited success. Teeth gritted, she scooted forward, trying to work up a bit of momentum. The bed moved with her.

She'd just steeled herself to use both arms when Siroc, who had been watching her predicament, stepped forward and held out a hand. Jacqueline took it. With her right hand. He pulled before she could snatch it back.

She yelled, the pain stripping her throat raw, and her only consolation as she fell back on the bed moaning was that what burst out had not been a girlish scream.

Siroc winced and leaned over her, chewing his bottom lip, caught in the predicament of all bystanders in medical crises: how to help without hurting the victim more. "Um-" he began.

Jacqueline sat up. "I'm all right. It's just sprained, I think. You don't happen to have invented any kind of medicine that miraculously relieves pain, have you?"

"No, but that's an excellent idea." He thought about it a moment. "I'll get right on it once I've finished the miracle cleanser."

Jacqueline didn't ask, only half-rolled off the bed and followed Siroc out.  



	4. Of Thee I Will Believe

Chapter Four: Of Thee I Will Believe

Jacqueline stared down at the paper. The first letter of the first word of the first sentence was an A. The next one was an N. Of this much she was sure. The rest of the letters marched across the paper in random groups she knew must be words, but she could not read them. Blinking away tears of frustration as the instructor droned on about time and restrictions, Jacqueline tried again to make sense of the test. The third letter was an S, but as she tried to put a name to the fourth, it began to move across the page. The rest of the letters were moving too, swirling, merging, until she could no longer recognize a single one.

She raised her hand and waited for the proctor to call on her. "Sir, I think there's something wrong with my test."

The letters coalesced as he strode over and picked up the booklet, holding it up so the rest of the room could see. The young men around Jacqueline began to snicker, and then to laugh outright, their mockery filling the room. Shoving her chair back, she tried to push through the throng of desks to the door, but before she reached it, many hands had seized her and begun to tear at her uniform….

Jacqueline opened her eyes in the darkness and lay frozen in bed, trying not to shiver in the sweat-soaked, swiftly cooling sheets. Steeling herself, she threw them off and rolled over, hissing as her weight fell on her shoulder. It began to throb, and she knew she'd never get back to sleep, even though she'd only gone to bed a few hours before. The afternoon's nap and her shoulder contrived to keep her from sleep, even though she'd worked with Siroc past dark, rebuilding his distillery as he taught her the sounds of the alphabet.

It was so very early in the morning that "late at night" wasn't quite over. Jacqueline sat up carefully and thought about going for a walk or a ride. And then she thought about saddling a horse one-handed. A walk it was, then. She dressed slowly and padded down the hallway, boots in one hand, knowing that if she woke Captain Duval, a notoriously light sleeper whose room was right next to the door, he would not be inclined to leniency, and she'd be in the dungeons with d'Artagnan and a mop.

A thin line of gaslight lit the hallway as she turned the corner, still shining through the ajar lab door. Either Siroc had forgotten to turn out the light, or he was still at work. Jacqueline suspected the latter, and stuck her head in the door to tactfully suggest he go to bed.

At first glance the room appeared empty, but as Jacqueline reached for the gas switch, a soft snoring reached her ears. She looked around again, and spotted him behind the workbench. Siroc had fallen asleep slumped in a low-backed wooden chair, body limp with exhaustion, hand and apron chalk-streaked, a smear of chalk dust on his pert nose. His lashes lay still on pale, calm cheeks, lips moving softly as he breathed, mouth half open with a hint of a smile in the corners, trusting and expectant in sleep.

Jacqueline sighed as loudly as she dared, half-laughing and half-pitying, and set her boots down. Tiptoeing back to her room, she caught up the quilted blue coverlet she'd bought with part of her first real wages. Back in the lab, she tucked it around Siroc's sleeping form. Then she turned off the lights, caught up her boots, and left.

Outside, a sliver of moon tried to light the streets and was all but thwarted by scudding clouds. Jacqueline shoved her feet into her boots, shouldered her baldric, and set out down Rue Chenier.

Of the sprawling city that was Paris, Jacqueline knew well only a rough ellipse, its foci the Palace and Musketeer headquarters. She set out to walk the perimeter, keeping to streets more or less well-lit and avoiding alleys, aware that she was one woman alone, but also that she carried a sword she knew how to use. She was not afraid, but her shoulder throbbed and she had a lot to think about.

The nightmare had shaken her, dream-truth trying to weasel its way into the realm of fact. 'It's not for two months,' she told herself, 'and letters do not move once printed.' But a knowing dread still lurked at the back of her mind. 'If I fail, they will throw me out of the Musketeers.' Her footfalls made a taunting chorus: "If I fail, if I fail…"

Jacqueline quickened her pace, destroying the rhythm, and turned along Rue Ferou.

If she failed….

She felt the need to walk the implications out; this she did, until in the effervescent darkness before dawn, Jacqueline felt the knots in her stomach ease, and the pain in her shoulder subside to a dull throb. She would not fail. She had a good teacher, and she would work hard. She would not fail.

Turning back toward headquarters, she tried to calculate an excuse for Captain Duval if he caught her sneaking back in after a night on the town.

She had just considered going straight to Café Nouveau to seek out the enigmatic baker, Noret, not returning to headquarters at all, when she heard the scuffling in the alley behind her. In the light from the flickering streetlamp, Jacqueline turned, and a burly figure barreled out of the alley and into her, narrowly missing her shoulder.

"Oh, sir," he gasped, fawning. "Sir, I can't tell you how sorry I is." His eyes widened upon seeing her uniform. "You're a Musketeer! P'raps you can help. It's my sister; she's in a bad way…." He seized her arm and pointed back down the alley. Even in the shadows, Jacqueline could see what was clearly a large man hitting a small woman, probably with the intent to do other things to her, as well.

Jacqueline took off before she could stop to wonder why the man couldn't help his own sister, though he was close behind her as she sprinted toward the pair. They sprang apart as she neared them, turning to face the sound of footsteps with feral eyes.

What Jacqueline had first thought was a cautionary hand on her left arm became a vice-like grip. Puzzled, she tried to turn, body kicking into self-defense mode, and the man's arm snaked around her neck. The formerly feuding pair converged on them as she fought the stranglehold, unable to use her half-drawn sword at such close range. "A Musketeer!" the woman crowed. "What's he got on 'im?"

Jacqueline had, in point of fact, nothing on her and said as much. But that didn't stop the woman patting her down and rifling through her pockets while the men held her. Jacqueline held her breath, praying that they wouldn't feel anything amiss, or notice if they did, and waited until the woman finished before making her move. Going limp in their grip, she kicked backward at the fellow holding her left arm, and tried to draw her sword when he bent down to clutch at his shin, swearing.

The woman, who had taken the meager contents of Jacqueline's pockets out to examine them under better light, returned upon hearing the noise. While Jacqueline struggled in the grip of the remaining thug, the woman watched, a bemused smile flitting over her thin, rouged lips, then calmly stepped forward and punched Jacqueline's right shoulder.

She screamed, feeling something separate in the joint as the arm fell limp by her side. Biting her lip bloody to keep from crying out again, Jacqueline glared out through blurring tears as the woman, smirking, said, "Tie 'im up, boys. We won't have no more trouble from this one."

"Not from him, but you will from me." All four looked up to see a figure silhouetted in the mouth of the alley, hair tousled, sword in hand.

Jacqueline spit out the half-tied gag. "Siroc? Thank God! How-" The second thug's hand caught her across the face, snapping her head back and splitting her lower lip. Siroc dispatched him with a pistol, drawn in an eye-blink and fired left-handed, as the other two charged him.

Jacqueline scrambled to her feet to help him, stumbling over the still-warm corpse as she fought to reach the brawl. The remaining man and woman had evaded his blade long enough to get inside his guard and, once inside, the fact they were unarmed did not matter: Siroc couldn't use his sword.

Watching the trio of Musketeers whose fourth member she was fast becoming, Jacqueline had noticed that Siroc was the worst fencer of the group, only mediocre by the corps' standards. But mediocre by Musketeer standards was expert by any others'. Even so, at close range and in the darkness, a rapier was not the ideal weapon.

So he did what Jacqueline had been silently willing him to do: he dropped it and clubbed the man over the head with the still-smoking pistol, leaving the outraged woman to claw at his face. Siroc did not, in keeping with the Musketeers' Code, make a habit of fighting members of the gentler sex, and now without a choice in the matter was at a loss. He backed away, tripped, and tried in vain to ward her off as she leaped on him.

Jacqueline had no such qualms, however, and ended up yanking the woman bodily off of him by the back of her gown, but not before the hoyden had shredded the back of his shirt and started in on his back.

Struggling one-armed with the bundle of furious energy that had formerly been her attacker, Jacqueline cried out as the woman hit her shoulder once more. She stumbled backwards, and the woman gathered herself up. With a hiss of invective directed equally at her fallen comrades and the Musketeers, she ran off toward the shadows at the opposite end of the alley.

Mind filled with bright spangles of pain, Jacqueline slumped against the clammy wall, too dazed to even think of going after her assailant. Siroc retrieved his sword, laid the pistol down and knelt beside her. "The shoulder?"

"Yes," Jacqueline spoke carefully around her split lip, spitting blood. "How did you find me?" The knot on the back of her head had begun to throb, and the parts of her body that did not ache gently hurt actively.

His fingers probed gently around the joint. "I followed you. I woke up and went to return your blanket."

Jacqueline opened her mouth to deny ownership, then realized he must have seen it in her room the day before. She cleared her throat. "Oh, don't worry about it. Gah!" she hissed as he hit a hole where none should be.

He sat back on his heels. "That's dislocated, not broken. Once it's set it won't hurt so much."

"Well, set it then!" Jacqueline groaned.

"I need better light. We'd better get back to headquarters anyway. It's nearly dawn."

"Captain Duval," Jacqueline muttered as he gave her a hand up, "is going to kill me. I'll try not to mention you."

"I think he'll notice." Siroc twisted to survey the ruin on his back. "That's the third shirt this month."

Under a lightening sky and a rising wind, the bedraggled pair made their way back to headquarters; Jacqueline moving slowly, as every step jarred her shoulder to new heights of agony, Siroc hissing softly whenever the breeze hit his lacerated back. The few people about their business that early gave them strange looks but said nothing. After all, they'd seen the King's Musketeers in stranger situations.

In the courtyard before the front door Siroc stopped, chewing his bottom lip pensively. Jacqueline, straggling along behind, nearly ran into him. "The Captain's up," he muttered, tipping his head at the light gleaming in one of the windows, "which under normal circumstances would mean I'd take the back way." He glanced at her shoulder. "Can you climb one-handed?"

She started to shrug and then stopped. "I can climb and pitch hay at the same time."

"Good enough." Siroc led the way around the building.

"I didn't know there was a back way," Jacqueline commented.

"Well, there isn't really. D'Artagnan needed a convenient way to go in and out after curfew without the Captain knowing, and he enlisted my help because the only way into the attic is the trap door in my laboratory. And he needed someone to help him take the hinges off."

Now more puzzled than before she'd asked, Jacqueline watched him retrieve a ladder that lay innocuously in the rubbish of the alley, as though abandoned by a party of workmen. He carried it around the building and propped it beneath a gable window near the roof. Clambering up, he pulled the shutters open.

Starting up after him, Jacqueline noticed that the woman in the alley had not been the first to touch Siroc's back with malice. Through the tatters in his shirt, she could see that scars covered his entire back from shoulders to waist. While many had faded to little more than thin white lines, the worst formed thick silver wedges, cutting across the smooth muscles. She thought with some regret that it must have been quite a beautiful back at one time. His skin was fair and fresh, and the lines of bone and muscle were still solid and graceful, the shoulders flat and square-set and the backbone a smooth, straight groove cut deep between the rounded columns of muscle that rose on either side of it.

Looking at this wanton damage, she could not avoid a mental picture of the process that had caused it. She tried not to imagine the muscular arms raised, spread-eagled and tied, ropes cutting into wrists, the sandy head pressed hard against the post in agony; but the marks brought such images all to readily to mind. Had he screamed when it was done, like the man in the square long ago, when her mother had forced her to look away.? Jacqueline pushed the thought hastily away as she reached the top of the ladder and let him help her through the window.

Inside, Jacqueline looked around at a tiny, dusty garret, a part of headquarters she hadn't known existed. Worn, broken chairs and dusty trunks lay scattered around, and the space smelled moldy and sad. Siroc was already kicking open a trapdoor, letting the attached ladder unfold before descending. Shivering, Jacqueline followed.

Once in the lab, he set to work clearing off the largest table with quick, business-like sweeps, muttering to himself. "Lay down," he ordered, "and let you arm hang off the side."

Jacqueline obeyed, trying to reassure herself that he knew what he was doing. Her shoulder did not take kindly to letting the arm hang off the side, so she propped herself up on her chest with the other elbow until Siroc came around, touching the dislocated shoulder.

He was chewing his lip again, and looked not at all sure of himself. "I don't know if this will hurt or not. Do you want something to bite?"

"What do you mean you don't know if it will hurt or not? Haven't you ever done this before?" Jacqueline stared up at him.

"Not exactly. I've seen it done, though. It did look like it hurt, come to think of it." He frowned at the memory, shoving unruly, touseled hair out of his eyes.

"Siroc," she groaned. "This arm is my life. If I can't fence…" She glared up at him, trying to hide how scared she was.

"You'll be able to fence, don't worry. In a couple of months. Trust me." And Jacqueline found she did, that the earnest brown eyes convinced her.

Jacqueline subsided into prone silence on the table as he knelt and began to pull the arm slowly toward the floor, using a strong and steady force. The shoulder protested. Jacqueline gritted her teeth in silence.

After what seemed an interminable while, he let go, and she gasped as the shoulder–there was no other word for it- popped into place. Almost all of the pain ceased. She rolled off the table, flexing experimentally.

"You'll have to wear it in a sling for a few months, but other-" Jacqueline cut the surprised inventor off with a fierce, unthinking bear hug of pure joy.


	5. Such Disguise

Chapter Five: Such Disguise

After muster, Captain Duval called the two tragically disheveled cadets aside. He had seen them sneak in late, but was inclined to sympathize rather than censure in the face of Jacqueline's swollen mouth and barely concealed sling, and Siroc's lacerated face.

"I don't want to hear that you two were fighting," he began, once the office door closed.

The two exchanged glances. "Well, it was a fight, sir," Siroc said, careful with the truth.

"But not between us," Jacqueline was quick to add.

The Captain rolled his eyes. "Explain, Lepont."

Jacqueline did, slowly, to save her lip and because she and Siroc hadn't had time to collaborate on a story. She began with the trick plea for help, skirting the ambush, and ended with her at the thug's mercy. "And that's when Siroc came in," she finished, glancing at him.

His Adam's-apple bobbed painfully as he swallowed, and the tale of the rest of the rescue came out in a barely controlled flow of words, simple and wrenchingly honest. 'He doesn't think he did anything heroic,' Jacqueline realized. 'He doesn't like to kill people.'

'Do I?' she wondered. She had run her father's murderer through, in shock and feral rage, had fought and killed the Cardinal's Guards, and would certainly kill Mazarin himself if presented with an opportunity. But would she enjoy it? 'Perhaps,' she decided. She'd have to wait and see.

Captain Duval absorbed their stories, expression unreadable, and then sat back in his chair. "What happened to your arm, Lepont?"

Jacqueline cleared her throat. "Just a sprain, sir. It'll be back to normal in no time." She cut her eyes at Siroc, daring him to contradict her.

"It did get sprained, sir," he confirmed, and Jacqueline relaxed. But then he went on. "He dislocated it in the melee, though. I've set it, but it needs to be immobilized for at least a month."

The Captain, to Jacqueline's horror, seemed inclined to take Siroc's word on this. "Then I'm relieving you of duty for that period of time, Lepont. Not a punishment, you understand, just a precaution. I need someone here to keep d'Artagnan humble."

Jacqueline managed a pained smile. "Thank you, sir."

"And both of you get some sleep. You look terrible." He dismissed them with a wave and, bowing slightly in acknowledgement, the two took their leave.

Once out in the corridor, Jacqueline turned on her erstwhile rescuer and physician. "Why did you do that?" It was the kind of thing she'd have expected from d'Artagnan.

He shrugged. "If you use your arm before it's healed you'll damage it permanently, or at least weaken it. Do you want it to pain you whenever you fence for the rest of your life?"

Jacqueline opened her mouth to say that she didn't care, but shut it abruptly, because she did; a part of her knew she should be grateful. "I'm going to bed," she muttered, and pushed past him, stalking down the hall to her room. Siroc stared after her until the door slammed, then shook his head and turned into his lab.

The bed protested as Jacqueline dropped onto it, kicking her boots off and groaning. "Relieved of duty for a month," she muttered, trying to pull her jacket off around the sling. She hadn't thought to ask whether she'd be paid during that time. Sighing, prepared for the worst, she calculated how long it'd be before she had to dip into her savings, or pawn part of the lady's wardrobe she was slowly collecting.

Private Lepont had acquired a reputation as quite a ladies' man with the dressmakers around Paris- ladies about his size and measurements. The lace cloak had been Jacqueline's first purchase. It was a delicate, ethereal garment so utterly beyond a farmer's daughter that the thought of owning it had shocked her at first. But she had gone into the shop to ask the price. That had shocked her too. Feigning disinterest, she had returned to headquarters and counted out her savings. She had gone back to the shop and haggled with the tailor until the price paid was nearly half of what he'd quoted her before. And now the cloak lay locked away in her trunk, a talisman of her femininity.

Thinking of the cloak, Jacqueline threw her tangled jacket into the corner with more force than necessary. She knew she should undress and sleep, but didn't want to bother, or to see the barely faded contusions covering her body beneath newer, blossoming bruises from the activities of the night before. She hurt everywhere with a dull, throbbing ache that pounded at her bones with every heartbeat.

Something she had said, half-jokingly, to Siroc the afternoon before floated to the top of her mind. The memory of his serious answer made her lever herself off the bed and pad barefoot down the hall to his lab for the second time that day.

As she had thought, he was there, tinkering with the distillation apparatus. He looked up as she leaned against the doorframe. "Captain Duval told you to get some sleep."

"He told you the same thing," Jacqueline retorted, and then decided she'd better be nicer. "How's the, um, miracle pain reliever coming along?"

"It's not." He frowned at the length of copper tubing in his hand. "The distillery isn't efficient enough to reduce the tincture of willow bark and allow me to isolate the nerve-deadening compound."

Jacqueline latched on to the part of the sentence she'd understood. "Willow bark tea? Is there any left?"

"It's over there. Help yourself." He pointed to a container simmering over a blue alcohol flame and went back to his adjustments.

Jacqueline limped over and peered into the pot, where bits of twig bobbed gently in a murky brown liquid. It appeared to be the same stuff her mother had drunk for headaches and cramps. Slightly suspicious, she looked around for something to drink out of. Checking to make sure Siroc wasn't looking, she grabbed an empty beaker, wiped it on her shirttail, and dipped it full of tea, trying to avoid the bits of bark while not scalding her fingers.

Taking her makeshift teacup, she sat down a companionable distance from Siroc, not wanting to make off with both his tea and his equipment. He didn't notice. Jacqueline had noticed that he seemed to go somewhere else when he worked, forgetting everything around him except the task at hand, yet able to reach into the mess of tools on the workbench and find the correct one without ever taking his eyes from the machine. Looking around, she realized that he'd probably never leave the lab if not dragged out by his friends or patrol duty.

Jacqueline sipped her cooling tea, grimacing at the bitterness. It tasted odd, sweeter than her mother's, and she hoped he hadn't kept arsenic or another poisonous chemical in the beaker. But if she died at least she wouldn't have to worry about not being able to get up out of the chair. She took another long drink, feeling better already.

A warm, floating sensation suffused her entire body, spreading from her stomach upwards, erasing aches and pains in its wake. Not unlike, Jacqueline thought, almost giggling, the time she and ten-year-old Gerard had sampled vintages from their grandfather's wine cellar. She was so tired…

Siroc looked up, to add a belated postscript to his offer of the tea. "I've included a mild sedative—oh." Putting down a section of the dismantled steam chamber, he took the empty beaker from her limp hand before it could drop and smash. He crossed to the corner by the door and retrieved the coverlet folded there, the one she had covered him with, the one he had not returned, and spread it over her.

He did not look closely at his sleeping comrade. Or, if he did, Siroc saw only what he expected to be therenot what truly was, not what he would have seen if he'd examined the sleeping woman as he did his books and machines. If he had, he would have seen to her heart, as he did to theirs, and he would not have gone back to tinkering with the distillery.

Bright midmorning sun shone through the windows, waking Jacqueline and making her squint. Siroc, she noticed, was gone. Stiff but rested, she pushed herself out of the chair. The tea and whatever else had been in it had worked; she thought she might possibly be able to walk and perhaps fence without pain now.

Her stomach growled as she stretched experimentally. Heading to her room to wash up and dress, she decided to visit the cafe, where she could both have breakfast and seek out Noret, for whom she had some questions.

She felt that stepping into the kitchen and asking for him might not be the most prudent course of action, so, after ordering coffee and pain (shouldn't it be 'pan?') au chocolat, she sat where she could watch the kitchen door, ready to accost the baker should he appear.

She didn't have to wait long. Jacqueline had consumed half the coffee and most of the pastry, and was absorbed in fiddling with her sling in an attempt to make it marginally more comfortable, when she felt someone slide into the booth opposite her. Looking up, she saw Noret, flour on his cheek and batter on his jacket. "I thought you'd be back," he said, grinning. "Mind if I join you?"

Jacqueline, her mouth full, shook her head. He went on. "I owe you an apology for yesterday. Chef can be…temperamental." Large gray eyes twinkled at Jacqueline. "He came in this morning, stinking of brandy, and started snoring as soon as he sat down. I saw you come in, but I had to wait for my éclairs to finish. What happened to your arm?"

"A fight," Jacqueline said shortly. "What did you mean, yesterday, that you were glad there was another one?" She had decided that bluntness was both masculine and expedient.

"Oh, yes." Noret looked down a moment. "Has that been worrying you?" He leaned across the table, straight-faced. "I meant, of course, that I'm glad there's another girl."

Jacqueline's heart paused, and then began to thud again, pretending along with the rest of her that she did not know what he meant. "Where?"

Noret heaved a theatrical sigh. "Here," he said, proffering a small cylindrical package. "A token of my faith and good will."

Jacqueline looked down, nonplussed. "Socks?"

"Must I explain everything?" he muttered. "Look," Noret lowered his voice, though in the busy café no one could overhear them, "you're pretty good. You don't bulge where you shouldn't bulge. But you don't bulge where you should bulge, either. Lower down. So, the socks."

Feeling her face grow warm, Jacqueline blinked. Was he guessing, or certain? Did he mean to blackmail her, or was he, possibly, trying to help? "I beg your pardon, m'sieur"

"'M'sieur?' 'M'sieur!' Are you blind?" Eyes closed either in disbelief or desperation, Noret slouched in the booth, raking a hand through his hair so that it stood up in soft whorls, making him resemble nothing so much as a ruddy-faced, blond hedgehog.

Jacqueline stared at him for a moment, and as she did the world seemed to move around her, taking a quarter-turn and falling neatly into place. She saw the face before her graced with rouge, framed with longer hair, and smiling sweetly instead of grimacing at her. She blinked, and the mirage disappeared. The femininity, however, remained in the eyes and the structure of the face- reminding Jacqueline of what she saw in the mirror every morning.

Noret saw the realization dawn in her eyes. "I'm glad," she said, voice heavy with irony, "that there's another one."

"Oh," said Jacqueline faintly. "Yes. I thought I was the only one." But now it seemed silly to assume there could not be other women who lived as men, for protection or opportunity.

"You're not." Noret smiled slightly. "There aren't many. But there are some."

"Oh," Jacqueline said again, feeling naïve beside this girl who must be three years her junior. "How long have you-" she flicked her hand, not wanting to voice something as bald as 'pretended to be male.'

"Two years." Jacqueline suppressed a whistle. "My name is Marthe. I've heard the others call you Jacques. Is it Jacqueline, then?"

Jacqueline nodded and, unwilling to give her true surname, lest Noret be perceptive concerning things such as wanted posters, stuck a hand across the table, saying in her best baritone, "Jacques Lepont."

Grinning broadly now, she took it. "Etienne Noret."

If the café hadn't been so noisy, someone would surely have heard them giggle.


	6. Very Worth His Service

Chapter Six: Very Worth His Service

Jacqueline stayed at the Café until late in the afternoon. She and Marthe remained at their table for the better part of two hours, when the baker said she thought she'd better start the evening's bread. The pair moved into the kitchen, talking above the chef's snores, throwing dough back and forth, and generally enjoying themselves. Jacqueline helped out as well as she could with one arm, and in return received a haphazard lesson in baking. Once in the kitchen Marthe never stopped moving: mixing, kneading, sliding batches of dough into ovens and pulling out shining golden loaves in every shape imaginable.

She also maintained a steady stream of conversation, pausing once in a while to offer Jacqueline a buttered roll or slice for her approval, or to ask impatiently for a few more eggs or a clean side towel. Jacqueline kept up, having the most fun she could remember in a long time; besides the free food, always welcome to a penniless Musketeer, it felt so 'good' to speak freely with another girl--who wasn't trying to flirt with her. Jacqueline talked about her family, or lack of one, and listened to Marthe's tales about her domineering father and seven younger brothers and siblings.

When the chef showed signs of stirring, Marthe piled Jacqueline's arms full of baguettes and brioche and bundled her out the back door, joining her a moment later carrying a brown paper package. "These are for- well, I don't know his name. He doesn't come in as often as the rest of the cadets, but when he does, he sits by himself, or with the three of you. Tall, brownish hair, brandy-brown eyes?"

"Oh, Siroc," Jacqueline mumbled, trying to juggle everything.

"Oh, Siroc," Marthe sighed, in quite a different tone, and went on before Jacqueline could inquire. "Whenever I set out a tray of strawberry napoleons, he comes over and stares at them, like he's trying to eat them with his eyes, but he never buys one. So give him these. Say they were surplus or something."

"Are they?" Jacqueline wanted to know.

"No, I baked them specially. I do hate to see a person go away hungry." She balanced the package on top of the bread.

"I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon," Jacqueline muttered, as a bellow of "Noret!" came from inside and, with a wave and a grin, Marthe disappeared through the door.

Jacqueline smuggled her edible treasure trove into headquarters, depositing the bread on the table in the common room beside a kettle of stew someone had recently pulled off the hearth, meeting no one. On her way to deliver the package of "surplus" to Siroc's lab, however, a trio of grimy figures accosted her, vaguely recognizable beneath the dirt as her comrades. "Where have you been?" she asked, looking them up and down.

"Where have 'you' been?" d'Artagnan retorted, as Ramon replied that they'd been helping him clean the dungeons and Siroc muttered something about a miracle cleanser.

Jacqueline chose to address d'Artagnan, fixing a commiserating smile on her face. "I've missed out on all the fun, then." She clapped him on the shoulder as she went past, balancing the napoleons on her sling as she did. "Stew and bread on the table, if you're hungry," she called over her shoulder to the other two, jerking her thumb back toward the common room, and she could almost see Ramon begin to salivate.

Jacqueline continued down the hall, unsure quite why she hadn't given Siroc the napoleons then. They weren't even from her, but Marthe's interest in him had rankled, for reasons Jacqueline could not comprehend. So she put the subject out of her head, persuading herself that she'd wanted to be sure that, since Siroc was so fond of the pastries, Ramon did not scarf all of them. Jacqueline knew he would if given half a chance, Siroc being easily distracted at table by a word or an idea, and prone to leaving his food totally untouched at the end of a meal.

Jacqueline, stuffed with tidbits from the Café, was not hungry herself, so she decided to give d'Artagnan a bit of time to calm down and clean up before she joined her friends for dinner. Sitting carefully on the bed, she unknotted her sling and laid it aside so she could get her floury jacket off. It would have to be washed, Jacqueline decided, glad she didn't have to get it to the laundress's before muster tomorrow.

Moving her right arm in slow circles, the only exercise Siroc had proscribed, Jacqueline stripped the tie from her hair with the other hand and shook out the chestnut mane. Unbound, it fell nearly to the small of her back. She wondered if she should cut it—and then recoiled violently from the idea, irrationally repulsed. When she was growing up, everyone had always told Jacqueline that she had her mother's hair. Jacqueline had liked this, since her flowing hair was almost the only thing she could remember about her mother.

Tying it back up, she decided that if d'Artagnan made a snide remark about it, or wisps got in her eyes when she fenced, that she'd club it back instead of merely pulling it into a horsetail. 'Not that I'll be doing much fencing for a while,' she thought, knotting the sling into place, an awkward task with only one hand. Catching up the napoleons, she ducked out, meaning to leave the package in the lab while Siroc was absent.

Once in the hall, though, Jacqueline froze. The thud reverberated down the hallway, repeating itself after a moment, coming from the direction of Siroc's laboratory. Concerned, Jacqueline poked her head in the door to find the still slightly smudgy inventor leaning on the wall beside it. She cleared her throat. "What's wrong?"

He turned, raising his hand to cover the large red spot on his forehead, ostensibly pushing his hair back. "Oh, it's the distillery. Mankind has been building them for hundreds of years, and I can't even manage a minor innovation!"

"Relax." Jacqueline reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "It's not worth beating yourself up over." She nodded toward the mark the wall had left, not quite hiding a smile.

"The problem is distressing for purely personal reasons," he muttered.

"Then maybe this will cheer you up." Jacqueline proffered her package. "Café Nouveau was having a sale and, well, a little bird told me you liked strawberry napoleons."

"You bought me strawberry napoleons," he said, looking from them to her.

Jacqueline shrugged, realizing too late that she hadn't owned up to a particularly manly act.

Siroc stared for a moment more at the packet, while she wondered if she should make a joke, and then he looked up, eyes light. "Thank you very much." He smoothed his apron as she set them on the table. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Jacqueline thought quickly. "I, ah, I'd like to borrow a book."

"You'd like to borrow a book," he repeated, nonplussed, since she'd only memorized the alphabet a couple days before. But upon seeing the glint in Jacqueline's eyes, Siroc decided to go along. "I'm afraid my library is limited to science and philosophy," he said, turning to the shelves. "What kind of book were you looking for?"

"Philosophy," Jacqueline decided. It sounded marginally less intimidating. "Can you recommend something?" 'Something with short easy words, and perhaps illustrations?' she did not add as she joined him.

Siroc scanned the shelves, tapping his chin speculatively. After a moment's thought he took down a volume that seemed identical to the rest, holding it for a moment before passing it to her. The gilt-edged leather folio cradled in his slender artist's hands, a striking image that made Jacqueline feel impossibly gauche and unlettered as she took it in her own calloused, square-fingered ones, was gone all too quickly.

"Sir Francis Bacon's 'Essays'," the inventor announced. "There will almost certainly be a selection from Bacon on the 'Examen'."

"Bacon?" Jacqueline hazarded a guess. "An Englishman?"

Siroc nodded. "The father of modern science. He pioneered the method of inductive investigation- using experiments to verify a hypothesis." Jacqueline blinked to keep her eyes from glazing over, trying to at least do him the courtesy of paying attention, even if she understood only one word in three. "His program called for a survey of knowledge, separating the genuine from the erroneous and preserving this knowledge as the starting point of future investigations. Bacon's essays exemplify this: concise formulations of facts that have practical value to man."

"In English?" Jacqueline asked when he came up for air.

Slightly deflated, Siroc rolled his eyes. "No, it's a French translation."

Feeling a bit better, Jacqueline opened the book at random and began to pour earnestly over it. Siroc watched her, in the middle of a serious moral conflict. He had bought a primer yesterday, a slim volume filled with bright illustrations and simple sentences like 'The pig sat in the mud.' and 'See the cart, Jean!' He knew that such books were used to teach children to read. He also knew that he had something of a special case on his hands.

His comrade was intensely proud, even worse than d'Artagnan, and several years older than Siroc. And he had asked for a book of philosophy. Siroc imagined taking this book from his friend and replacing it with one bearing a pink, smiling rabbit on the cover. He thought about how he would react should such a thing be done to him.

He was, he reflected, something of a special case himself. He could not remember being taught to read, or a time when he could not look at a word without hearing it in his head. So he was perhaps not the best person to teach Jacques to read. But Jacques had asked him, and Siroc had taken up the project with his usual interest and, with his usual tenacity, would see it through.

So, leaving the reader in the drawer, he crossed to Jacqueline, turning the book right side up in her hands and said, "Start with 'Of Studies.' It concerns the value of reading." 'And, more importantly, it's short, and the language is simple.'

And Jacqueline smiled, leaning closer to look at the page he indicated, thinking that she could perhaps do this after all.


	7. I'll Serve This Duke

Chapter Seven: I'll Serve This Duke

Author's Note: It helps to have read my fic 'Broken Away' to understand this chapter, but is not necessary.

In the depths of the Louvre, Giulio Mazarin sat trimming his fingernails with a slim Florentine poniard. As he paid other people to fight for him he had little use for it other than as a letter opener, but he kept it as a memento. It had been a gift from his mentor and predecessor, Armand du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu.

Upon retiring, he had left Mazarin another remembrance as well: a web of spies and informants scattered throughout Europe, concentrated in France and most active in Paris itself. The Cardinal sat at its center like a giant red spider, attuned to any movement on outlying strands that might signal new prey.

For the past few months Mazarin had encouraged his talebearers, through bribes and threats, to direct their attentions toward the Musketeers. The corps was the King's personal regiment and so Mazarin took a special interest in their demise. The news he had received so far had been surprisingly bland: a brawl here, a cuckolded husband there, a bar tab left unpaid, a maid's petticoat stolen. The charges against the musketeers could have been brought against men in a dozen companies in the city. Nothing useful.

It had been Mazarin himself who discovered the piece of the puzzle that made him redouble his efforts. It had happened accidentally and-he liked to think- serendipitously A personal attempt on his part to implicate two of the cadets in an extortion scheme, and therefore humiliate the entire corps, had backfired, though he had managed to finesse the dénouement to the king. But on the barge supposedly carrying stolen gold, Mazarin had found gold in quite a different form: a marvelous underwater boat and its creator… whom he recognized all too well.

Someone he had searched for the better part of three years had been hiding directly under his nose. Mazarin had of course heard of the cadet called Siroc, in connection with d'Artagnan's brat, that ridiculous rhyming Spaniard, and the newcomer called Lepont. But until he'd seen his face Mazarin had not connected the boy with his runaway inventor.

'So Mathieu has taken refuge with the Musketeers,' Mazarin mused, remembering with chagrin the somewhat bald overtures he'd made the boy the day of the barge incident and again a few weeks later in his personal offices. Surprise had prompted the first, impatience the second, and as both had been rebuffed resolutely and articulately Mazarin knew more subtle methods were called for.

As he contemplated the nature of such methods, a knocking on his study door drew him from his reverie. "Come," he barked.

The door edged open, followed by a young Guard, who made him a slightly nervous but razor-sharp bow. "Your Eminence, we are detaining two…persons who claim to have information about the Musketeers."

Mazarin rolled his eyes. "Take it down and dismiss them then."

"Your Eminence-" the young man swallowed- "they say they will speak only to you."

"Very well." Mazarin waved a hand. "Send them in."

The Guard returned a moment later, with three of his fellows, holding between them a frowzy, badly made-up woman and a man sporting a bruised lump on his head. The two made a clumsy attempt at an obeisance and then stared frankly at Mazarin. Mazarin stared back.

When they seemed disinclined to volunteer any information, he said, "I was told you had information concerning certain of the Musketeers. I see that was incorrect. Take them away."

The man and woman both spoke at the same time, but he trailed off to let her continue. "It wasn't incorrect, Your Worshipfulness. We do. Me and Jock had a little run-in with two of 'em about a week ago. Friend of ours, Boisy, was with us, but, well, he ain't here to tell the tale, if you take my meanin'."

"I don't," Mazarin snapped. "What happened?"

The woman pushed a clump of hair behind her ear, shooting Jock a quelling look as he opened his mouth. "Well, me and Boisy and Jock was out at night, since we hadn't got any place to go, and there wasn't anyone about to take- I mean, ask a bit of help of. So me and Boisy got to arguing a bit, like, on account of he wanted to go west and I wanted to go east."

"Yeah, and I left and kind of bumped into this young fellow when I come out of the alley," Jock piped up, edging away from the woman. "And he was a Musketeer. And I tells him my sister's in trouble. And she is my sister, sir. Probably."

Mazarin waved the innocently earnest assurance aside, scowling. "And was she in trouble?" He'd had just about enough of this creatively interpreted truth.

"She might of been," Jock allowed, pock-marked face creasing in thought.

His probably-sister moved past the uncomfortably doubtful topic. "We asked him for a bit of help, Your Worshipfulness, and he was very rude! Said we could clear off, and other things I wouldn't like to repeat in your august presence. And so we decided he might want to make a little donation anyway."

"And that's when he kicked me!" Jock pulled up the tattered leg of his trousers to show a yellowing bruise.

"Yes, I can see that he did," Mazarin said, masking distaste with mock concern. "Put it down now."

"And while we was seeing what he had on him- I mean, what he might be able to contribute to our worthy cause, another one of 'em came up, and shot Boisy," the woman added indignantly.

Mazarin leaned forward, impatient with their cobbled-together lies. "Another Musketeer?"

"That's right. The first one called him 'Siroc,' if memory serves," the woman confirmed. "Very pretty fellow. Both of them was pretty, come to think of it, and seemed very fond of one another," she added with a leer.

Filing this information away for further use, Mazarin asked, "Oh? What did the first one look like?"

Brother and sister conferred for a moment. "Oh, about as tall as me," Boisy said. "Dark hair, parted here, back in a queue. Little beard. Maybe twenty, twenty-five."

Mazarin ran through his mental index of likely Musketeer cadets. "The other one didn't happen to call him 'Jacques', did he? Or 'Lepont?'"

The woman shook her head, smiling like the cat that knows the canary's about to offer itself for breakfast. "No, Your Worshipfulness, but I think there's one way you can be sure of getting the right fellow."

"And what is that?" Mazarin asked solicitously. If this pair of buffoons had murdered the Musketeers in retaliation, he thought, they would find themselves being recognized by the number of pieces they were in.

"Well," the woman confided, "he's a she."


	8. Thy Silence

Chapter Eight: Thy Silence

Leaning back against the wall of the gymnasium, d'Artagnan watched Jacqueline dueling left-handed with her shadow. Having just returned from patrol, he'd known she'd be there. She had been there every morning since she'd hurt her shoulder and would be there, he presumed, for two weeks more: the month of her forced vacation.

Jacqueline stood with her back to the morning sun streaming in the high windows, and advanced and retreated, her feet sliding and turning intricately, her sword a blur of thrusts and parries, too fast to follow properly.

Almost every Musketeer at Headquarters had spent some time watching her either covertly or, as d'Artagnan was, with open admiration. Lieutenant d'Orsay, left-handed himself, had even taken her in hand and shown her some techniques peculiar to the left-handed fencer. D'Artagnan had finally begun to pick up some of the disciplined patterns in what Jacqueline was doing. And as he watched it go on and on, he understood something else.

This was more than mere training on the part of someone who'd injured her sword arm. In these relentless, driven repetitions d'Artagnan had begun to see that Jacqueline was masking, as best she could, the emotions rising within herself. D'Artagnan didn't know what those emotions might be, but he thought he could guess. Every afternoon Jacqueline disappeared into Siroc's laboratory, shutting the door, not to emerge until long after dark.

D'Artagnan hadn't been able to observe a change in the inventor, though, except perhaps a tighter guarding, a shielding of the self. D'Artagnan, who had seen him grow from a reclusive, jumpy teenager into a young man who spoke and fought with equal confidence, had never seen Siroc with a tighter rein on his heart. And this puzzled him more than Jacqueline's behavior.

He watched the dark-haired woman going through her systematic drills without fuss or wasted motion of any kind, and when she stopped, bent double and panting, he went over to her and offered her his handkerchief. Jacqueline took it, not looking up to see who offered it, and then straightened, mopping rivulets of sweat from her face.

"Oh, d'Artagnan." Her voice went flat as she offered him the damp cloth back, mouth thin, eyes grudgingly grateful.

"Good to see you, too," he said, smiling. "Haven't seen much of you lately."

"Well, you know where to find me." Jacqueline went to hang up her weighted practice foil, annoyance and frustration evident in tone and voice. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

D'Artagnan followed her over to the wall. "Yeah, well, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You should take it easy, Jacqueline. Or easier, anyway."

"I have work to do. The leave wasn't my idea; you can thank Siroc for that." He noticed dark smudges under her eyes that hadn't been there before. When had they appeared? And were they from restlessness and worry, or something less…natural?

Privately wondering what else she could thank Siroc for, d'Artagnan took down a foil of his own. "Funny you should mention Siroc. The two of you've been spending an awful lot of time together," he said, with studied nonchalance

Jacqueline stared at him, not-quite-scowling. "What are you saying?"

"Nothing." He bent to stretch so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes. "Just wondering what the two of you are up to." 'Or down,' he did not add; she'd skewer him.

She gave him a skeptical look and lowered her voice. "If you must know, he's teaching me to read so I can pass the Examen." The thought of the test, now in less that six weeks, made Jacqueline's stomach twist, and so she put it out of her head.

"You don't know how to read?" was d'Artagnan's first question. He kept it to himself. "Why didn't you ask me? I could teach you."

"D'Artagnan." Her look reminded him eerily of Captain Duval's as d'Artagnan tried to convince him that of course the girl leaving his room had been his cousin. He shrugged, but both of them were remembering the last time d'Artagnan had tried to teach anybody anything. He and Ramon had ended up at each other's throats after half an hour, the cards forgotten. "I prefer someone who doesn't try to seduce me every five minutes."

"Oh." D'Artagnan tried not to look as relieved as he felt. "So he doesn't know you're a –you know?" He waved his hand, still not looking at her, torn between relief and jealousy.

Jacqueline rolled her eyes. "No, d'Artagnan, he doesn't. Why do you care?"

"Well, I just thought- two of you spending so much time locked together- I mean, locked in his lab. Anything could happen." He tried a few passes at the air, rapier flickering in time with his feet.

"No, it couldn't. You're the only person who tries something whenever you're alone with a girl for five minutes. Siroc doesn't know, and besides, he's different." Jacqueline did not feel like explaining to, him, here and now, just how Siroc was different. She didn't want to sound like a lovesick flirt.

D'Artagnan spun on one heel to face her. "Yes, he is. He's had a lot of terrible things done to him, before he joined the Musketeers."

Slightly taken aback by his quiet, serious tone, Jacqueline took a step toward him. "His back?"

D'Artagnan nodded. "His back- and other things. So if he finds out, and you hurt him, I will kill you myself." The button of his foil danced a foot from her face.

"He won't find out," Jacqueline said, shaken by his utterly serious, matter-of-fact tone. "He's my friend too, you know."

"Lovely." D'Artagnan whisked his foil back, smiling with everything but his eyes. "Glad we had this little chat. Care for a match?"

"No." Fussing with her sling, Jacqueline crossed to where she had laid her jacket and picked it up. "I've got to go wash up. We're reading Descartes tonight."

"Sounds fascinating. Have fun." Jacqueline rolled her eyes and started for the door, still fiddling with the sling, and nearly ran into Ramon, coming in at a half-trot.

"Mail's here," he said, sidestepping and holding the bundle out of her reach as she snatched for it. D'Artagnan jogged up, making Ramon hold the letters higher, laugher uproariously at the attempts of his shorter comrades.

"Patience, amigos, patience!" he gasped as they danced around him.

Jacqueline cut her eyes at d'Artagnan. "Get him." Ramon ran. The two of them chased him out of the gymnasium and through the corridors, dodging officers and maids with laundry baskets until Ramon spotted a welcome open door and took refuge inside Siroc's laboratory.

The inventor looked up from a coil of copper tubing as Ramon dodged around a workbench. "Mail?" D'Artagnan and Jacqueline, the definition of hot pursuit, followed shortly. "You can't do this every month, you know," he said, reaching for a wrench.

Ramon did not deign to answer, as the other two had cornered him next to a shelf of glassware, still holding the letters out of their reach. Jacqueline, however, had had an inspiration and was tickling the tall Spaniard mercilessly. As he tried to fend her off, d'Artagnan made a flying grab for the letters, dangerously close to a rack of test tubes.

With a sigh of exasperation, Siroc put down his wrench and went to take matters in hand. "You'll break something," he muttered, pushing between d'Artagnan and Jacqueline to glare up at Ramon. "Give me the mail," he ordered, holding out a hand, not amuses in the least.

To the surprise of the two watching, the taller man acquiesced, handing the coveted missals over meekly. "Thank you," Siroc said, and retreated to riffle through them. The other three ranged around him with barely contained impatience.

"One for Ramon- from your sister, I think." He held it out. "And two for Jacques."

"Who from?" d'Artagnan wanted to know, smirking.

"'From whom'." Siroc corrected, pursing his lips and looking to Jacqueline.

"Mimou," she said, after a moment, "And Gerard, all the way from America." She and Siroc shared a grin, hers of accomplishment, his of pride: she'd read the address perfectly, and without any prompting.

"And three for d'Artagnan," the inventor said, looking down. "Charlotte in Rousillon, Celeste in Alsace, and- Fredrika? I don't know her, do I?"

"Oh no!" d'Artagnan groaned, still smiling broadly. "She was my mother's upstairs maid. Always used to follow me around. Annoying…." But he snatched the letters anyway.

Siroc looked down. There was still one letter left. He turned it over to see his name on the back. "That's odd." The other three exchanged looks; Siroc never got mail. They watched him break the seal and scan the contents.

The blood drained slowly from his face, leaving in the color of his linen shirt. He blinked twice and shook his head as if to clear it. And then he crumpled the letter, shoving it into a pocket. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me," he said after a moment, voice husky, and steered them politely but firmly toward the door.

"Who's it from?" d'Artagnan wanted to know, trying to peer at the letter.

Siroc licked his lips. "Ah, Le Journal des Sciences wants to publish one of my articles on mechanized flight. It's a very great honor. If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone."

Shooing all three of them outside, he shut the door in their inquisitive faces. And then he locked it.


End file.
